Plot

A nervous Nozomi prepares to leave the Maple House for the day and head home, fearful of coming back late. She hears odd noises coming from the other parts of the residence, which are the sounds of Nana relentlessly attacking Nyu as payback for what her Lucy persona did to her, and to protect Mayu.

Knocking her opponent through walls and now the front door with her vectors, Nana expects a counter-attack but instead sees a confused and pained Nyu calling for Kouta, who harshly slaps her and demands to know why she attacked his friend. The slap and the tender attention paid to the girl she sees only as the vicious Lucy terribly confuses her, as does Mayu's tearful apology for bringing her there in the first place. In tears, Nana protests that it is Nyu who is evil, not her, but Kouta throws her out, while he and Yuka tend to an unconscious Nyu.

Running to a forest shelter while fighting back the tears, she ends up pursued by Mayu, who refuses to believe the girl they know as Nyu to be evil, even if she is eccentric. Angry at Mayu and the others, Nana also becomes severely confused by her words and by the realization that she never once sensed Lucy's presence around Nyu, hating the fact of being constrained against attacking her the only time she might have a chance of beating her.

Color version of Chapter 48's cover.

Back at the Maple House, Nozomi has left for home while Nyu runs a fever, with Kouta rejecting the hospital as an option for her due to a warning from Arakawa about the dire fate of horned people. When Nyu regains consciousness, he becomes happy to hear her say his name. But in the shelter at the park, Nana is openly startled when she realizes that Lucy has emerged, although she is too sick to move.

Trivia

The end of Volume Five in the original manga features a special chapter also entitled, 'Elfen Lied,' summarized here. However, despite this title, the chapter and its story have nothing to do with the characters and situations of the Elfen Lied universe and storyline.

Nyu wears the look of a young woman about town on the chapter's cover, complete with a purse its uncertain her housemates would allow her to have at this stage of her development.